R/O water storage

[Mr. Fairy Wrasse]

Hi friends;
I store my R/O water in the usual rubbermaid type garbage container, and it is pumped out via an ATO top off system. My question is this- Does sitting R/O water stagnate or otherwise grow any sort of bacteria while it sits in the container. Sometimes I notice that the container, and hoses in it, are slimey to the touch.

[banditpowdercoat]

How long is RO sitting?? Yes, it can grow stuff if sitting for too long. Some run circulate pumps in their RO storage

[Myka]

Yes, that's a bacterial coating. The only way to prevent that is to sterilize everything between fills, and have the container 100% airtight. The bacteria gets into the water via air.

[Pan]

Originally Posted by Myka

Yes, that's a bacterial coating. The only way to prevent that is to sterilize everything between fills, and have the container 100% airtight. The bacteria gets into the water via air.

Yeah..only mix what you can use in a week. I did however have a rather large UV unit running in a closed loop sort of thing on my long term storage. I had about a 100 gallon plastic tank i used for storage and mixing. But in general it's nothing to worry to much about. For me the uv was for peice of mind and eventually i stopped bothering with it. I did however rinse the tub out once every two months.

[fkshiu]

Bacteria can actually grow surprisingly fast in RO water once it gets a foothold - no chlorine to kill anything in there.